


Turning Pages

by BestHandwriting



Category: Qualidea Code (Anime)
Genre: Discussed Kasumi/Aoi, Implied One-Sided Ichiya/Kasumi, Mentioned Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9152626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BestHandwriting/pseuds/BestHandwriting
Summary: Kasumi has never been good at moving on- he clings to the past until all the memories have faded away, leaving only faint feelings of loss in their wake, or he avoids it completely.In which Kasumi comes to terms with the losses he's suffered and the future that awaits him.





	

In the heat of the moment, it’s an easy decision to make. The administration building is falling around them- they can save either Tenkawa, Rindo, and thousands of children locked in cold sleep, or save the traitor Yaegaki. Almost every form of argument insists Kasumi save the thousands of lives instead of one, and so that’s what he does.

He doesn’t stop and think, _Hey, I spent a whole day on inspection with Yaegaki and genuinely enjoyed her company_ , or, _I really respected her for her hard work,_ or _I stood up for her to Ichiya when she wouldn’t once_. Or worst of all of them, _I don’t really want her to die._

At least, he pretends he doesn’t think about that the whole way down to retrieve Tenkawa and Rindo.

(It lingers in the back of his mind, and it stays back there for a long, long time.)

* * *

The first time those thoughts are drawn to the forefront of his mind, Tenkawa is inquiring about Yaegaki’s fate. Though she asks Ichiya for the truth, Kasumi answers in his place with a lie.

The rest believe him. Asuha was the last one they knew saw her, and she never lies to her brother about anything. And what reason would he have to lie about what happened to Yaegaki? To protect her? Ichiya and Utara ought to believe he wouldn’t defend a traitor. And Tenkawa and Rindo are none the wiser about her betrayal, so why would they doubt his words?

The only one who can recognize the falsehood bows her head at his words, burdened with just as heavy a heart as Kasumi carries. Asuha won’t reveal the truth. To admit the truth would make them more of murderers than they already are.

“We killed her,” Asuha murmurs once the others disperse. She has aged ten years in these few hours of fighting- the battle tired her eyes beyond her years, and the guilt of leaving Yaegaki behind hunched her shoulders.

And Kasumi sighs, “I know.”

He doesn’t recognize it then, but he is just the same. The smiles he’d begun to wear have faded to frowns, and his eyes stare off blankly into the horizon. He moves stiffly from the pain of his still-healing wounds from Okuni’s attacks, aggravated by the fight with Asanagi. And when he speaks, his voice doesn’t quite hold the fire it used to.

(They all know this feeling, growing up too fast. But Kasumi has never been good at moving on- he clings to the past until all the memories have faded away, leaving only faint feelings of loss in their wake, or he avoids it completely.)

“We should join the others. They’re waiting for us.” Asuha straightens up her posture and gives a little smile like she’ll be okay. She will be. In a few days, weeks, she will write off her guilt by clause of necessity and move on with her life.

If only Kasumi could do the same.

He stares at the horizon, listening to the way each crack in the administration building echoes emptily among the town. The sound waves are too muddled to tell if anyone remains. And even if he could tell, there is no way to differentiate between the living and the dead.

“Okay, Asuha,” he finally relents. “Let’s go.”

(But the whole way back, he can’t block out the clamor of the life he once knew collapsing behind him.) 

* * *

It isn’t until he tries to sleep off the day’s (week’s) event that the invective thoughts start to come.

_Why didn’t I save her?_

_Why didn’t I let Asuha go save Tenkawa and Rindo while I went to get Yaegaki?_

_Why did I choose to let her die?_

The only answer he gets to those unvoiced questions is light snoring from above him.

If only he could sleep like that now. Instead, he’s laid awake for hours, his mind whirling with questions he cannot answer. He doesn’t know why he did what he did. At the time, the choice seemed simple. Every choice seemed simple. Hadn’t he told Ichiya that he had decided what was important to him and did just that?

He’d taken the steps to protect his family’s futures, and that was all. So why should he even regret the choices he made along the way? Why should he feel anything but acceptance at what happened?

Giving up all hopes of sleep, he finally opens his eyes. The shadowed world offers little relief to his racing heart, but it’s better than facing his thoughts. Kasumi forces himself to get out of bed too. Maybe a little wandering will clear his mind.

(Or maybe not, but anything’s better than confronting the root of the problem.)

His meandering brings him to the stern of the ship, right by the Guaranteed-To-Kill-Unknown cannon. Stars speckle the night sky, beautiful in their own right. Yet no matter how much he tries to think otherwise, they are far less awe-inspiring than the false galaxy that painted the barrier’s illusionary nights.

He lets out a sigh, leaning up against the railing. This new world ought to be nicer. It’s the truth, and what could possibly be better than that? Yet standing out here, all he can think of is how pleasant the life he left behind was. He may have lacked a full family, but living his days out by his sister’s side wasn’t so bad. Fighting to keep living another day wasn’t even that terrible either.

It was almost like home.

No, there’s no almost to it. It was home to him, and he wouldn’t have lived those years any other way.

There was so much in that time he loved. The bantering over who would do city management (even if both he and Asuha knew who exactly would cave in the end), the days where the six of them would just spend time together instead of fighting, those moments when Asanagi would pull him to the side and ask, “How are you doing, Kasumi? Found a girlfriend yet?”

And those moments working alongside Yaegaki…

Yaegaki…

The sound of light footfalls behind him draws him away from that dangerous train of thought before it can reach its self-deprecating conclusion. He turns his head, watching as Tenkawa shuffles up onto the deck by him. She doesn’t notice him at first, not until she’s close enough to reach out and touch him.

“Ah, sorry, Kasumin!” She giggles for a brief moment before trailing off, eyes downcast. “I didn’t see you there! I’ll just be on my way-”

“You can stay. If you want, that is.” He nods his head towards the railing beside him. Tenkawa stares at him for a long moment, no doubt wondering if someone replaced Kasumi with a kinder model, before joining him.

She lays both her hands over the railing, her gaze far off in the horizon beyond. “What are you doing out so late, Kasumin? You ought to go to sleep. Hotaru-chan says a good night’s rest is important!”

“I could say the same to you.” Tenkawa’s exaggerated normalcy deflates with her posture as she rests her chin on the railing too. Kasumi can barely stand to watch her. He’s always recognized Tenkawa’s acting; she’s rather good at it, but he’s the master of pretend among them. Although he may not always understand what drives others to wear masks, he can always see through them. “What’s keeping you up?”

Tenkawa’s confident voice cracks like glass as she muses, “I just can’t stop thinking about it. The battle today.”

He wonders if she will cry too.

He hopes she doesn’t. He can’t handle people crying.

(He’s never known how to handle people being anything less than normal.)

“I…I killed Airi-san. I know I did.” Tenkawa shakes despite the coat slung over her shoulders like a blanket. Once a symbol of her power, the jacket now dwarfs her, making her appear every bit the fearful child she is underneath all her layers of bravado. “I didn’t realize it was her… not until it was too late. But if I hadn’t done it, we never could have ended this war…”

She trails off, falling into uncharacteristic silence.

Sorrow does not befit Tenkawa. Although it lends her an air of humanity, she has never belonged among the ranks of weak humans like him. She is a goddess, a warrior, a hero, not an unknown face among the masses, and she is not allowed to cry. That is why society has reified her- so she can stand on the podium and appear a singular facet of humanity instead of staying a person in full complexity.

But just this once, he doesn’t voice those thoughts.

In this brief break from normalcy, they are not goddess and peon. They are just Tenkawa and Kasumi, brought together by identical guilt.

“Airi-san cared for us… despite everything, I know she did. But I… I killed her anyways.” The glitter of tears on her cheeks is all the warning Kasumi gets before she grabs his hands and turns him to face her.

He stammers, “Ten-Tenkawa? What are you-”

“Does it make me a bad person, Kasumin?” she asks, watching him with uncharacteristic solemnity. “Killing Airi-san instead of trying to understand her, doesn’t that make me bad?”

For a long time, he can’t answer her question.

Does killing Yunami make Tenkawa bad? Most would celebrate her victory because it ended a war- already, there’s been talk of decorating her with medals for taking down the Gatekeeper. But all the same, Yunami was the closest thing that they had to a mother during those years in the tri-city area. She may never have been family (at least not to him) but she was something.

She definitely meant something to them.

Does killing her almost-mother make Tenkawa a terrible person? Almost definitely. What kind of person would kill someone that important to her without trying to understand why she acted the way she did?

But if Tenkawa is labeled bad for unknowingly killing Yunami, then what does that make him?

“Asuha and I left Yaegaki to die in the Administration building,” Kasumi mutters, not quite meeting Tenkawa’s gaze. She lets out a little gasp, and her grip tightens to the point of discomfort around his hands. “She sided with Asanagi and blocked our worlds. Asuha had to knock her out to get them to work again. But when the building started falling, we didn’t take the time to go back and bring her with us.”

“Kasumin…” Tenkawa can barely choke out his name through the sobs wracking her slight form. “You-”

“We knowingly let her die, even if we didn’t kill her. So who’s worse? You or us? Does it even really matter? We’re all damned for being world users, so what’s one more strike against our humanity?” He manages a wry smile as the lie passes through his lips.

_What’s one more strike against their humanity?_ Everything. Even now, he can still hear Asanagi say, “If I’m not human, then what does that make you kids?” on repeat over and over again until he longs for nothing more than to cry “I don’t know anymore!” to the changing world around him.

Are they even human? Were they ever human? And if they really were human, would they have done what they did?

He doesn’t know, and in many ways, that’s more terrifying than knowing the truth.

(At least if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t have to wonder anymore.)

“Kasumin, don’t say that!” Tenkawa releases his hands like they’ve burned her, and maybe they have because he’s hardly worthy to be touched by someone so genuinely good as her. “You did what you had to do! And you helped us save all those children by doing what you did!”

Kasumi scoffs, “Maybe you should just listen to yourself instead of me.”

Tenkawa falls silent to ponder the meaning of his words. Ordinarily, he’d deride how long it takes her to understand things, but he allows her all the time she needs tonight. Too much has happened in the past few weeks; even his mind reels from the sudden transformation of their world.

(Then again, he’s never been good with change.)

When she finally comes to her conclusions, her lips form a watery smile. “Thanks, Kasumin. You really are a nice person, you know.”

“Thanks for the faith in me.” He pouts, taking care to hunch his shoulders like he’s defeated so she might believe his faked offensive to be truth.

She does, of course. He would expect nothing less of her.

(But in the back of his mind, he knows she will someday realize her first hunch was right- Kasumi Chigusa has never been and never will be a good person, no matter how hard he tries.) 

* * *

The next few days pass by in a blur. There’s much to be done, mourning to be had (he stands solemnly in the shadows as soldiers carry body bags onto a ship to the mainland, counting how many are marked with a C and wondering what names go with them), and decisions to be made. He must sleep somewhere in there, but it seems like every time he shuts his eyes, _she’s_ there to ask, “Didn’t you love me, Kasumi-san?”

And he wakes up gasping for breath, one hand pressed against his racing heart and the other clenching the sheets tight as he struggles to find an answer.

Did he love Yaegaki?

Sure, she was nice. Kasumi always liked how she asked him about himself instead of just settling on never understanding him like so many others have done. And maybe if he were to be particularly candid, he’d admit she was cute. Not outstandingly beautiful, but she had a smile that could light up a room and a radiant glow about her that suited her well.

In many respects, she was a lot like Utara. But he never had a problem with Yaegaki, not like he did with Utara.

Did he love Yaegaki, though?

He doesn’t think so. When she decided to betray them, he didn’t hesitate to send Asuha after her. He accepted what happened and ignored all the past they’d shared together. If he had truly felt something for her, he would have chased after her himself.

But even if he didn’t love her, she still meant something to him. He wouldn’t wake up every night trying to push away her memory if she was just another person in his life. But she wasn’t family or even a close friend. They met in passing most of the time, and the few long hours they spent together could hardly merit a substantial connection.

No, for him, maybe the best way to describe her importance is that of an ideal. She shone bright, the epitome of everything a human should be and so many things he did not have.

(He can still imagine her leaving with Asanagi and Yunami that day like a happy little family, and having to stop himself from reaching out towards that beautiful scene he thought he would never live again.)

But when her precious world shattered, Kasumi could only watch in silence as her radiance faded away. She had no family to speak of anymore- to say anything but scorn for Unknown just earned confusion and misunderstanding from the adults. She had nothing.

And maybe he noticed. Maybe he noticed a lot, and that was why when the time came for her to leave him behind, he accepted it without a trace of pain in his heart.

(The pain came later when he lost her for good.)

Does he love Yaegaki now?                                                 

No. He can forgive what she chose to do, but he can never forget.

Sure, it hurts that she’s gone. It hurts that he left her to die. But despite the agony tearing his heart and mind to shreds, he can’t say he regrets what he did. He made the right decision. Even she would agree on that.

He can’t afford to look back anymore.

(So when morning comes again, he gets up for the day without a second glance back.) 

* * *

“What’s next, Onii?” Asuha asks one night once things finally start to settle down and they’re not needed so desperately anymore. “Where do we go from here?”

Her words awaken Kasumi from the light doze he’d fallen into, but he barely cracks open his eyes when he responds. “We can’t stay in Chiba.”

Asuha hesitates before she exhales a shaky “yeah.”

They both know it’s not just Chiba they need to leave behind.

“I want to understand everything.” Kasumi picks up the book still resting on his stomach, mindlessly thumbing through the pages. “There’s so much we don’t know. About why we have worlds. About how having them will affect us going into the future.”

(About the hundreds of pages of information on their parents, and just as many on all of them.)

Asuha leans back on the couch, the sudden movement jostling him from his very comfortable position against her side. With a groan, he blinks away his lingering drowsiness as he sits up beside her. “We’ll have to pick up our things from Chiba first.”

“And the rest of Okuni’s books,” he agrees. “I suppose we’ll need to get a trailer or something too to carry all our things. The books will take up a lot of space.”

For the first time in days, Asuha giggles. And when he glances over at her, a brilliant grin lights up her face, the perfect blend of bastard and angel that defines her. “Or I could just dump out the dead weight.”

He feigns offense, but the moment their eyes meet, the charade dissolves into laughter- at least for Asuha. Kasumi barely manages a smile, which is about the best he can give.

The intention isn’t lost on Asuha. “I’ve missed this, Onii.”

He could say, “Me too,” but when he responds, all that comes out it as a quiet “I know.”

Asuha’s going to be okay soon. She’s already started to return to normal- well, as normal as Asuha has ever been. But for now, all she will get for her struggles is watching her brother try to maintain this act of normalcy.

Kasumi Chigusa isn’t strong. He never has been. Never will be. But she accepts that unconditionally about him- it’s her duty as his sister, to love him despite his flaws until the day she finds her true home. And until that day comes, it will be her and him against the world.

The Chigusa siblings.

Leaders of Chiba.

(Partners in guilt.)

It’s not enough, not really. It can’t replace the Yaegaki-sized hole in his heart or the missing piece that the person he probably loves will never fill, but it’s enough to get by. He can get by. He always has, no matter how cruel the world or how self-destructive his mind.

He can do this.

He has to.

(He’ll try.) 

* * *

But through all the life lessons Kasumi has learned, no one ever told him that the hardest part of moving forward was saying goodbye.

The farewell to Mom goes okay. She gets a little tear-eyed talking with them, but she understands. He and Asuha aren’t quite ready for the normal family life. In all fairness, she isn’t either (though if she ever was, Kasumi would be surprised). But when they finally leave, Mom doesn’t let them leave without a promise to call, and a promise to visit every so often, and a promise to come back home and spend some time with Dad now that she’ll finally let him join her in the South Kanto region.

(Although it seems terrible to admit it, leaving her behind lifts a burden off his shoulders. Even as a child, her antics overwhelmed him.)

The other farewells, though, do not go quite so seamlessly.

Half of them come in the form of hastily-composed emails. _Will be leaving Chiba for a while. Emi and Haruno are in charge while we’re gone. Don’t do anything too stupid._ Those goodbyes come with a flooded inbox of confused, disappointed, and well-wishing responses. Some even come within five minutes of the original email being sent out.

But the hardest goodbyes come not from his family or his responsibilities, but from his friends.

Ichiya and Utara wait for the Chigusas just outside the hospital wing, quietly chatting to pass the time. Kasumi might have thought it nice if it weren’t for the constricting anxiety in his heart about how to even start the conversation with them. Asuha doesn’t have the same issue. She calls, “Still don’t have anything to do, Suzaku-san?”

And Ichiya scowls back, sharp reply quick to follow, “I don’t want to hear that from you.” His attention refocuses on Kasumi as he continues, “Your mom seems to be doing better.”

“Yeah.” Kasumi sighs, digging deep to find any lingering shred of normalcy within himself. “Maybe a little too well.”

That gets a laugh from both Ichiya and Asuha. Both of them really need to laugh more. They have such different laughs- Asuha’s is light and airy while Ichiya’s is more guttural- but they’re nice to listen to. Besides, all the seriousness of these past few weeks doesn’t suit either of them. Ichiya’s too emotional to act so stoic, and Asuha’s far too flippant to play serious for so long.

(But he supposes they might have changed with everything else. Perhaps they’ll stay stuck that way forever, more serious and thoughtful than they ever were before.)

“So, what are you guys going to do now?” Utara asks in her trademark too-sweet cheeriness. “We’ve been so busy, we haven’t had much time to spend together!”

More like Ichiya and Utara kept themselves too busy with work to spend any time with them. If they hadn’t done so, they would have known the answer to Utara’s question before they asked it. Kasumi doesn’t really feel like answering because of that. If they’d really cared about what the Chigusas were up to next, shouldn’t they have made time to spend with their fellow heads and subheads?

Asuha doesn’t share that sentiment, swiftly responding, “We’re meeting up with Ohime-chin and Hotarun to pay our respects.”

“Pay your respects?” Ichiya asks the question this time, but if anything, it makes Kasumi even less eager to answer than when Utara inquired. It’s one of those inexplicable things, really, the increasing desire to just leave things be and let Ichiya stay content for at least a little while longer. Maybe Kasumi’s running a fever or something that would scramble his brain.

(But he feels just fine, and his temperature seems normal range, so maybe there’s just something fundamentally wrong with him.)

“Yeah, Onii and Ohime-chin thought it would be nice to make a little grave for Asanagi and Yunami,” Asuha explains much calmer than Kasumi could have managed. It doesn’t mean there’s not a downturn of her lips at the thought of their almost-parents’ deaths or a quiver to her voice; she just manages not to stumble over her words or avert her gaze. “We all helped put it together. We would have asked you to help, but you guys seemed busy.”

Utara agrees, “We were!” before Ichiya has a chance to protest at their decision.

“Tenkawa and Rindo wouldn’t mind if you chose to come,” Kasumi offers as nonchalantly as he can manage, which isn’t really all that nonchalant but believable enough for now, “but it’d do you no favors to not bring an offering.”

Ichiya scowls, testy as he retorts, “I don’t need Chiba scum telling me that. I know my etiquette.”

“Icchan!” Utara whines, but she might as well keep silent. Her chastising always falls on deaf ears. However, when she turns to Asuha and Kasumi, a bright smile graces her pretty face to the point he can practically see sparkles around her. He averts his gaze shortly thereafter- she’s always shone too brilliantly for him. “What he means is that he and I would love to come, so we’d really appreciate it if you’d stop with us along the way so we could pick something up!”

“That’s not what I said,” Ichiya grumbles to equally deaf ears, “but we better get going. It’s already midday.”

No one argues with that. Ichiya and Utara’s busy lives have hardly calmed, and Kasumi and Asuha are on their way out of town anyways, so no one has time to waste standing around chattering like birds (although it’d certainly be fitting for Utara to do so). Ichiya and Asuha set up a meeting point so the Chigusas don’t have to wander around offering unnecessary opinions on what to bring (or so Ichiya claims), and then they go their separate ways without so much a wave in farewell.

(Kasumi can only pray the real goodbye will go that smoothly.)

As they drive, Asuha throws her head back to bask in the wind. Kasumi doesn’t have the heart to direct her attention back to the road. No one really drives much around the tri-city area anymore. Adults have yet to inhabit the area in droves, and most of the kids don’t have a vehicle. If Asuha were to cross lanes or speed, no one would probably notice- except him.

That doesn’t stop him from shouting, “Drive on the road, Asuha!” when she gets dangerously close to driving off the edge of the pavement.

When they reach the meeting spot, a little parking lot not too far from the gravesite, Kasumi leans back in the sidecar and closes his eyes. This is it. After this last meeting, there’s no going back home anymore. They’ve already packed the few things they’ll be bringing from Chiba with them (extra ammo, gun cleaning supplies, a couple snacks, and all their money including Asanagi’s credit card that never got returned), and they’ll pick up the last of Okuni’s- no, the Unknown’s- books on the way out of the tri-city area.

Although it’s terrible to think so, it feels kind of nice, leaving behind everything he’s known. There’s nothing left there for him. His life there was a lie, and not even a happy one once the “adults” proved that he and the other world users were nothing more than convenient weapons for them to wield. Yaegaki lays dead someone among the rubble of the epitome of their world, the lovely administration broken down as their horrible lies were unearthed.

And most importantly of all, no one really needs him there. Mom will be fine now that she’s sure to be the hero of Japan for saving the children from the Unknown, especially since Dad will be coming to join her. His Chiba students can’t keep relying on him and Asuha anymore if they want to integrate into the true world. Even Ichiya, who Kasumi might go so far to call a close friend (although if he were to be honest with himself, he would admit that Ichiya was probably something other than a friend to him), has no real need for his company now that Utara’s back by his side for good.

The only person who’s ever needed him is Asuha, and she would rather explore their world than tie him to Chiba. It’s for the best, really, him delving into the past while she drives towards the future. It’s much better than staying here, trying to play normal when anymore, it’s all too hard to be Kasumi the son, Kasumi the friend, Kasumi the never-fazed-by-anything leader.

So when Ichiya and Utara arrive, Kasumi stays calm. He doesn’t think about how the goodbye will happen. He doesn’t think about whether Tenkawa will cry or Ichiya will yell or if no one will really know that they have no attention of sticking around. He just pretends at being normal, making quips until his chest tightens too much for even that and he moves ahead of them to avoid more conversation.

Tenkawa greets them with much more pep than he’s seen in her for weeks, and even Rindo manages a small smile. They step away from the grave to allow the four of them their space. Kasumi goes first, offering nothing to the empty grace but a few murmured words that are both hardly enough and too much for the people honored by it. “Best of luck, wherever you are.”

Yaegaki and Yunami would probably have accepted those words more lovingly than they were given. Asanagi, on the other hand, would have guffawed about Kasumi’s ineptness in social situations. Whether or not his imagination is right, he hasn’t a clue. He doesn’t really want to have a clue either, not anymore.

They were all a part of his life, all people he thought he could trust at one point. But in the end, they all betrayed him, turned away and left him behind without a second glance back. They need to stay in the past as nothing more than bittersweet memories so that he can move forward. They need to stay dead.

He doesn’t linger long by the grave after that. There is nothing left there for him.

Ichiya and Utara go up together to take his place, and they spend a little longer there. Ichiya gives a magnanimous speech worthy of a hero, accompanied by Utara’s melancholic humming. But even they don’t stay too long. The memories that accompany the grave are tough to deal with.

Asuha is last to go up, laying her flowers on the grave with a rueful smile. It is only then that anyone speaks, Ichiya breaking the silence to discuss the one topic everyone’s been avoiding: where they will go from here. He even gives the answer Kasumi would expect- he and Utara will stay to rebuild. Kasumi’s not even surprised by the response that follows; Tenkawa has always been too dedicated to supporting her people to even think of skipping out on rebuilding Kanagawa.

Then it’s his turn to speak, and it’s like he’s never wondered how this moment will go. The words come naturally to him. “There’s nothing left for me to do here. I’ve said goodbye to Mom already. You do what you want.”

They’re far from perfect, but they’re just enough to satisfy the others’ expectations of him. He’s never been the one to follow along with what everyone else did. He’s always questioned what he was told and done what he thought was best, even if it diverged from the path everyone else liked to follow. Ichiya accuses him of that very sentiment a moment later, although he goes a little farther to claim Kasumi never thinks of those he leaves behind.

That little addition would be wrong, but Kasumi doesn’t voice it. Instead, he responds in a way that ignores addressing any of the contents of Ichiya’s words (although he may have gone a bit far by calling them a break-up talk- that might lead Ichiya to conclusions Kasumi would rather not have him reach).

They don’t bring the anger Kasumi expects. Ichiya pauses only a moment before insisting, “You’re the creepy one.”

Kasumi gives a little sigh, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment. At last, he’s reached the moment of no return. But when he allows his eyes to open, no regret weighs on his heart. “Bye, then,” he says, turning away as a smile crosses his lips.

“Later,” Ichiya replies, the creak of his neck as he turns his head the only way Kasumi knows Ichiya doesn’t watch him leave.

And that’s all there is to it. No more goodbyes, no more words to be shared until they meet again. Kasumi walks back towards the motorcycle with a lifetime’s worth of troubles lifted off his shoulders, oddly at peace.

As soon as they get situated- Asuha on the motorcycle, Kasumi in the sidecar- Asuha drives off without a word. They only stop to pick up the books, a quick little stop that resurfaces more negative emotions than it does books, and then they’re on the northern road out of town.

The further they go, the quieter things get. The only sounds to keep Kasumi company are the roar of the motorcycle and the synchronized breathing of he and Asuha.

For the first time, he and Asuha are truly alone in this world. But he is not afraid.

As the outer limits of Tokyo swiftly approach, Asuha breaks their peaceful silence. “Where to now?”

Asuha’s been far too complacent about this whole thing, accepting his answers without question and never offering her own opinions on what will become of them now. But all the same, he’s grateful she hasn’t asked any tough questions. There will be plenty of time to explain the truth properly to her, plenty of time where he will not be constantly reminded of the lies he once believed and the people he once loved.

In time, he will be ready to answer her questions. He has to be. But right now, he’s not ready for that.

(They say the deepest wounds take the longest to heal.)

When he finally replies, heart and mind weighed down the inexpugnable past, his voice is barely a whisper over the roar of the engine. “As far away as we can go.”

“All right,” Asuha agree, foot pressed on the gas as the motorcycle speeds ahead, “let’s go!”

They leave Tokyo behind without a second look back.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write something for Qualidea Code for months. A few common ideas came up: something set around/after the end, something analyzing Kasumi Chigusa as a character, and something focused on Kasumi's relationships with Aoi and Ichiya. This fic is the result of combining the three ideas together (although I must admit, I may write something focused more on Kasumi's relationship with Ichiya in the future as this fic didn't allow me to do justice in analyzing it). 
> 
> A couple semantics thing-  
> 1) The Japanese Qualidea Code Wikipedia page says Kasumi + Asuha stay to rebuild. So the ending of this fic may be canon divergence lol I don't care.  
> 2) I refuse to believe Haruma is dead until the show outright says Chigusa Dad is dead. Haruma survived Johannes for all those years; an Unknown invasion would be nothing to him.  
> 3) I know Kasumi never refers to Ichiya by his actual name, but the nicknaming thing would have gotten complicated, so I decided to just use "Ichiya" for ease of reading.
> 
> Finally, thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate it! Happy New Year's, and may 2017 bring you lots of happiness and money!


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